1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to gaging of physical dimensions of manufactured products, and more particularly to a gage assembly mountable to a fixture or machine and used in a production situation where parts are placed in front of the gage and, when the gage is activated, the gage will indicate the coordinate locations of selected features on a part.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The gaging art is highly developed and has become very sophisticated in view of requirements for obtaining and maintaining precise dimensions and close tolerances in some manufactured products. But there are situations where the expense that is sometimes incurred in the use of highly sophisticated gaging techniques, cannot be justified, either due to the relatively low volume of parts to be produced, the relatively large tolerances that can be accepted, the relatively low cost of scrap, or for other reasons. On the other hand, simple "go" or "no-go" gaging is not necessarily acceptable because operators can have no way to detect a trend of dimension between a "go" and "no-go" situation, and have no useful input for application of statistical process control techniques to the manufacturing operation. Therefore, there has remained a need for relatively inexpensive gaging readily adaptable to measurement of a variety of dimensions within reasonably close tolerances and providing output to remote monitors and dataprocessing equipment. My U.S. Pat. No. 4,525,931, issued Jul. 2, 1985 illustrates the use of a dial indicator gage assembly for measurement of parts and wherein the dial indicator gage itself is protected from damage upon application of the gage to the part or workpiece. That same technique is applicable to indicator gages which have a digital display on them and a useful output to electronic dataprocessing equipment. An example is "The Fowler Ultra Digit" electronic indicator made in England and which can produce an output to a suitable data collector such as the DataMyte Model 352 by DataMyte Corporation of 14960 Industrial Road, Minnetonka, Minnesota 55345. My U.S. Pat. No. 4,848,004 discloses an improvement in accurate co-ordinate measurement. In that device a slide assembly is mounted to the base, and a gage is mounted to the base. A gage actuator is operably associated with the movable element of the slide assembly, to provide a gage response to the position of the movable element. A part-engageable probe is also associated with the moveable element of the slide so that position of a feature of the part relative to some reference, can be detected and indicated by the gage. The components are provided in modular form, so two additional axes and associated gages and slides can be employed. The present invention is a further advance in gaging but at a lower cost.